Spring Chili with Stout

Though it’s nearing the end of May, Chicago’s weather patterns have been running hot and cold...literally.  Following several beautiful, warm days last week, it turned cool and periodically rainy over the weekend.  We’d invited over a good friend of DeAunn’s for dinner on Saturday, but the forecast precluded grilling.  Given the precipitously low temperatures and lblanket of clouds early in the day, I thought a late-season chili would work out well.

Having been tantalized by Sean Paxton’s Four Ale Nachos on Episode 33 of Brewing TV, I used his lamb chili as a base in place of my normal Pedernales River Chili recipe.  Questing out to Whole Foods for ingredients, I went with a range of organic, vegetarian-fed, antibiotic- and hormone-free, humanely raised meats; this is how I try to get my meat regularly, both for the flavour and my peace of mind.  The Black Forest bacon is particularly tasty.  Looking over the stout options at Binny’s, I went with the Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout, which had a wonderfully dark flavour that went well with the Ghirardelli 60% cacao I added.  Already having grated/powdered spices at home kept me from getting the whole seeds and roasting them myself, though that sounds like a whole lot of awesome.  To finish, I picked up a small chunk of aged cheddar for grating over top, and DeAunn scored some oyster crackers that worked out perfectly (her vegetarian choice was a Frontera Grill pre-made chili with extra black beans).

Of course, as soon as we arrived back home, the sky opened up and it turned out to be a perfect grilling day.  We went on with the chili, though, and were not disappointed in the least.  The spice level was present without being overpowering, and the mix of meats was really wonderful.  And it only got better over the next couple days.  I meant to get a picture of a bowl of the chili itself, but it never lasted long enough to get out the camera.  This chili already has me looking forward to fall, when this will make sense to make again, and there are precious few things that bring me to that.

5-Meat Stout Chili


8 oz Lean Ground Bison
8 oz Ground Lamb
8 oz Ground Pork
8 oz Beef Stew Chunks
4 oz Black Forest Bacon, chopped

1 Ancho chili
1 Fresno chili
½ Poblano chili

1 28-oz can peeled San Marzano tomatoes
1 Roasted red pepper, sliced
1 Yellow onion, chopped
1 Red onion, chopped
4-6 cloves Garlic

1 tbsp Cumin
1 tsp Allspice
1 tsp Coriander
1 tsp Paprika
2 tbsp Oregano

1/4 cup 60% cacao
1 bottle Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout

Cook down the bacon in a pan, then transfer it to the cookpot, leaving behind the grease.  Brown other the meat in the pan with the bacon grease, then transfer it to pot, again leaving behind the grease.  Saute the onions and garlic in the pan with grease at medium heat until onions become translucent; then add roasted the red pepper and continue to saute for 4-5 minutes.  Transfer all of it to the pot.

Chop all the chilies and remove the seeds, then add them to the pan; sear on high for 3-4 minutes.  Cut off the heat, add spices and tomatoes, then resume the heat; mash tomatoes and reduce for a few minutes.  Transfer all of it to the pot, then deglaze the pan with the stout; add rest of the stout to the pot.

Bring it to a boil, then add the cacao.  Reduce heat and simmer; serve when it reaches your desired consistency.  Garnish with grated cheddar and crackers of your choice.

Ted's Matrimony Ale

I got to know my friends Joe and Ted over pints at the Goose Island Clybourn brewpub while in school at DePaul; an appreciation for good beer has always defined our friendships.  Shortly after DeAunn and I moved back from Honolulu, Ted inquired about my nascent homebrewing hobby, and then jumped right into it (we both still working on Joe).  Ted’s helped out on some of my biggest brewdays, including both Russian imperial stouts I’ve made, and I’ve been on hand for several of his.  We both brewed for Joe’s wedding last summer, and it’s only right that I brew for his this June.

Ted’s love of Belgians and sours has greatly influenced my own beer buying habits, but we’ve always found common ground on hops.  Most of the people at the wedding will not be as geeky as we are, though, and will be looking for something not quite as heavy and hop oppressive as a double IPA on a warm Kansas afternoon.  I was really happy with the intense tropical fruit aroma and flavour I got in the small extract batch of Citra Bitter I made as a yeast starter for my wheatwine earlier this year, so I decided to go with an all-grain version based on the grains I had on hand.  A bit of Vienna and Caramunich to fill out the 2-row base, with some dark brown sugar late in the boil to bump the alcohol a bit without adding body, and we’re off.  I hopbursted and dry hopped to maximize all those great mango/papaya qualities without getting prohibitively bitter for those of less-than-hophead constitution.  Trying to fit in some English flare into this very Americanized special bitter, the S-04 may add its own layer of fruity esters (and also ferment and flocc out quickly).

Looking to get a bit more efficiency, I mashed overnight.  Other than bumping the OG by a few points, it also made the brew a bit simpler by dividing up the brewday, which was nice; I’ll be doing more of that in the future.  It turned out to be a stunningly beautiful spring brewday, and on top of that, I had a package arrive containing the new Radiohead album King of Limbs (which is, as expected, excellent) and Gordon Strong's new book Brewing Better Beer; once I whittle down the pile of other books I have on my bedside table, I'm looking forward to digging into this and Wild Brews.

I’d meant to dry hop for 5 to 7 days, but by the time I realized I had a fermenter space issue, 2 days is what I could spare; thankfully, the aroma was still intensely fruity at bottling.  This has been my fastest brew to date, kettle to bottle in 10 days; I usually don’t touch even my session beers for two weeks.  Hopefully it’ll hit its stride just in time for the wedding; unfortunately, DeAunn and I won’t be able to make it, so we’ll have to rely on reports on how it goes over.  All the best, Ted & Katherine!

Ted’s Matrimony Ale - Citra Special Bitter

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.047
Projected SRM: 8.3
Projected IBU: 52.4
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 84%

Grains/Fermentables
78.7% - 6 lb 2-row
9.8% - 12 oz Vienna
6.6% - 8 oz Caramunich III
4.9% - 6 oz Dark brown sugar (10 min)

Hops
1 oz Citra (13.7%) (20 min)
1 oz Citra (10 min)
1 oz Citra (Dry hop 2 days)

Yeast
S-04 English Ale dry yeast

Extras
1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)

Water additions (mash)
4 g Gypsum
.5 g Salt
.2 g Chalk

Brewday: 6 May 2011
Sacch rest @ 154F for 9 hours (overnight)- dropped to 120F
Pre-boil volume: 6.8 gallons
Pre-boil SG (w/o sugar): 8.8P (1.035)

Fermented in basement at ambient (60F); brought upstairs after a week to finish out

Dry hops: 13 May 2011

Bottled: 15 May 2011
FG: 1.007
ABV: 5.2%
Bottled with 3.2 oz of table sugar

Hops update: 13 May

The hops have gained a lot of ground (air?) in the last few weeks, so I thought I'd put up a picture of their progress. The Willamette, usually the fastest grower, and the Goldings, the slowest, seem to have traded this season. While I pruned back to just two bines a plant for the other plants, I let the Willamette put up three because their past growth so far outpaced the others. The bases of the Willamette bines also show signs of strain from a bit of kinking (my uneducated guess), which could also be a contributor to them taking more time this year. Still, they're not doing bad at all. I have no idea what's possessed the Goldings; I just know I had to let out more line on its adjustable trellis right after I took the picture, which means it's already more than six feet tall!

Summer Rye

Most of my early craft beer loves were on the darker, heavier, maltier side; in particular, Sinebrychoff Porter has held a dear place in my heart since a friend introduced me to it at Bukowski’s in Boston years ago.  But with the arrival of warmer weather (for which, to be honest, I wait all winter) it’s time for something a bit lighter and more balanced.  So, to follow the hefty Russian imperial stout that will lay around until next winter, the big brew day a couple weeks ago saw the birth of what I’m calling a summer rye.

Rye, malted or otherwise, is often cited as a brewing ingredient that produces a pleasant spicy flavour, a viscous and even tongue-numbing mouthfeel, and ungodly stuck mashes.  Undaunted, last spring I brewed an ordinary bitter almost entirely from malted rye with nary a peep of trouble from my mashtun (though I did add some rice hulls for insurance).  Having used rye malt with great success on several other occasions as well, it formed the base for this year’s first warm-weather beer.  As I ended up going back and forth on the grist for a while, I ended up buying getting the rye in several lots, so some is from Weyermann and the rest is from Briess.  While the rest of the base malt is domestic 2-row, I tried to add to the German qualities of this beer with a couple pounds of dark Munich to increase the maltiness and a touch of chocolate rye to give it a nice amber colour.

As I’m working through the end of last year’s bulk hop purchase, a small amount of Columbus pellets went in for bittering; however, a late addition of Saaz plugs (at an unexpected 7% alpha acids) should add its own spicy signature.  The yeast slurry of WY1007 from my alt a couple months ago, fermented cool, should impart a clean German touch, though it’s been throwing a good bit of sulfur late in fermentation.  In the end I hope to have an easy-drinking summer beer that’s a bit fuller bodied than most.

Other than an early boilover–someday I’ll learn to stop running around cleaning until at least after the hot break and bittering hops have settled down–the brewing was pretty straightforward.  Boiling off a good bit more than I meant (and losing some to the boilover), the OG ended up a bit higher than intended, so it may not be quite as sessionable as intended; somehow, I think I’ll manage.

Summer Rye
Batch size: 4.8 gallons
Projected OG: 1.057
Projected SRM: 12
Projected IBU: 34.4
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 74%

Grains
44.9% - 5 lb 2-row
36% - 4 lb Rye malt
18% - 2 lb Dark Munich
1.1% - 2 oz Chocolate rye

Hops
.5 oz. Columbus (14.5%) (60 min)
1 oz. Saaz (7%) (10 min)

Yeast
WY1007 German Ale (slurry)

Water additions (mash)
1 g Gypsum
1 g Calcium chloride
.5 g Baking soda

Brewday: 30 April 2011
Sacch rest @ 154F for 1 hour
One large boilover cut down volume big time
Fermented in basement at ambient (62̊F)

9 May 2011: Brought upstairs to warm up a bit & finish out; sulfur smell from airlock

Bottled: 15 May 2011
Added 2 qts boiled & cooled water to bring volume to 4 gallons & lower gravity - adjusted OG 1.050
FG: 1.010
ABV: 5.2%
Bottled with 4.3 oz of table sugar

RIS II

For my twenty-fifth batch of homebrew in the spring of 2009, I made a big, burly Russian imperial stout.  Despite going through a more complicated mash schedule than I was ready to handle, starting fermentation far too warm, and needing champagne yeast to knock down the gravity into the 1.020's, the beer turned out pretty tasty; rich and full-bodied without being cloying or overly alcoholic, with layers of chocolate, dark fruit and coffee flavours.  I still have a bottle or two around, which I’ll hopefully keep for at least another year or two.

For Batch #75, I decided to revisit the recipe and tweak it (and the process) a bit.  I upped the amount of roasted barley (and switched to a more heavily roasted UK variety) and malted oats, went with American crystal 120 instead of British dark crystal, and added a pound of sugar to dry out the beer a bit.  I made sure this time (as opposed to last time) to dose it not once but twice with yeast nutrient and energizer, kind of following Curt Stock’s SNA outline for mead, to hopefully keep the primary yeast going as long as possible.  I also went with a simple infusion mash instead of the long, drawn-out reiterated mash I used before; I look forward to revisiting that method down the road, particularly for a really massive light-coloured beer, but decided this time to just collect a greater volume and boil longer.  The efficiency was far from great, but it’s still a hefty beer.  Next time, I’ll probably do an overnight mash; it’s the one process I’ve employed that’s really made my efficiency jump.  To cap off this adventure, I’ll add a couple ounces of Hungarian oak cubes that have been sitting in Jim Beam for a couple months to secondary.

With the help of several good friends, I ended up with a bit over 5 gallons in my 6-gallon carboy; we dumped everything from the kettle into the primary, choosing just to rack off the trub after fermentation.  After adding a big plug of yeast slurry and a good long aeration from my friend Ted’s system, I put it to bed in the basement, where the ambient temperature was in the low 60's.  With the amount of headspace in the carboy, I figured I was in good shape.  By the next afternoon, it had blown off the airlock and was chugging krauesen out the carboy opening.  Not sure if all the extra trub really pushed this to the tipping point, but I’ll probably take the time to filter it out next time.  I cleaned it up, put in a blowoff tube, and got it in a water bath to stabilize it.  Within a few days, it had settled down, so I reattached an airlock and took it out of the water bath.  Fermentation has been slow since the first couple days, so I’ve been agitating the fermenter several times a day.  As long as it reaches a respectable terminal gravity in the next month, allowing me to age it on the oak for a while and get it bottled before our move to Utah, I’ll be happy.

RIS II - THE SEQUEL

Batch size: 5.3 gallons
Projected OG: 1.092
Projected SRM: 73.2
Projected IBU: 74.3
Boil time: 120 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 56%

Grains/Fermentables
72.3% - 17 lb 2-row
8.5% - 2 lb UK Roasted barley
8.5% - 2 lb Oat malt
4.3% - 1 lb Chocolate wheat
2.1% - 8 oz C 120

4.3% - 1 lb Dark brown sugar (10 min)

Hops
1.5 oz    Columbus (14.5%) (120 min)
1 oz    EKG (4.5%) (20 min)
1 oz    EKG (10 min)

Yeast
WY1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 - slurry

Extras
1 tsp    Irish moss (10 min)
.5 tsp    Yeast nutrient (dissolved in water, 10 min)
.5 tsp    Yeast energizer (dissolved in water, 10 min)
.5 tsp    Yeast nutrient (dissolved in water, day 3)
.5 tsp    Yeast energizer (dissolved in water, day 3)
1.9 oz    Medium-plus toast Hungarian oak cubes, soaked in Jim Beam (secondary)

Water additions (mash)
2 g    Baking soda
1 g    Calcium chloride
1 g    Chalk

Brewday: 30 April 2011
Mash-in: 150F for 90 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 8.125 gallons
Pre-boil SG (w/o sugar): 15.4P (1.063)

Everything put in fermenter - will filter coming out of primary
Ferment in basement at ambient temp (62̊F); blowoff the next day, moved to water bath at 59F

Secondary: 2 June 2011
SG: 1.033
Considered adding champagne yeast to get down into 20s, but given time considerations before the move and the oak, it'll go as low as it goes.  Next time I may pitch a large active starter instead of just going from a slurry.

Bottled: 6 August 2011
FG: 1.027
ABV: 8.7%
Sample tastes rich & potent; looking forward to snow on the ground so we can crack open these!
Bottled with 2.1 oz table sugar

First tasting: 20 August 2011
Very rich, lots of dark chocolate, no discernible roast.  Sample bottle was almost completely flat; hopefully the rest will carbonate with more age.

Reyeasted: 22 November 2012
Bottles never carbonated; have drunk them straight as a more syrupy, port-like beverage or have used them for cooking.  Added rehydrated champagne yeast (with yeast energizer) to the final four bottles to see if they might carbonate as originally intended.

Dodranscentennial Brewday

No, I didn't come up with that term off the top of my head; I harnessed the power of the interenets to find it.  While yesterday was not the seventy-fifth anniversary of anything that holds particular meaning to me (of which I know, anyway), it was the date of my personal Batch #75 (and #76, actually).  Though the forecast earlier in the week was for rain, the clouds cleared and it turned out to be a beautiful spring day.  Several friends, including my dad, came out for some beer sampling, grilling, hanging, and--of course--back alley brewing shenanigans.

Batch #75 is a Russian imperial stout, mirroring my first big "anniversary" beer, Batch #25, a couple years ago.  My friend Ted and his now-fiancee came over for that brewday, for which I attempted a single reiterated mash a la Chris Colby in BYO.  While the technique may have helped efficiency a bit, it turned into an all-day fiasco that ran well into the night.  Since I wanted to brew not just one beer but Batch #76 (an amber rye with a German bent) as well, I simplified the process to my normal single infusion mash schedule.  I also outlined the full brewday plan on paper and checked off items as I went, which turned out to be a great help.  Ted, a good enough friend to agree to come back for another extended brewday, also graciously lent his 10-gallon Megapot again as well as his aeration setup to get the RIS brewed and oxygenated.

All five of us had an active hand in the brewday; it was my dad's first all-grain brewday, in which he took part from measuring, conditioning, and milling the grain through mashing and boiling.  For my friend William, it was his first brewday altogether (as far as I know).  While we discussed some technique, it was mostly just a good day for enjoying each other's company.  Everyone also brought beer to sample; other than my homebrew on hand, we tried my dad's IPA, my raspberry Flanders red, Pannepot Reserva 2008, Bell's Batch 10,000, Stone Lucky Bastard, Surly Furious, Allagash Tripel Reserve, Port Old Viscosity, Schneider Aventinus, and Half Acre's recent Marty Stouffer's Wild America Barley Wine Style Ale.  That's a lot of flavours to absorb in a day!  Fortunately, we planned ahead and had plenty of food and water along the way.

Other than a boilover with the rye, the brewing side of things went pretty smoothly.  For lunch, my buddy Joe pulled grill master duties, tending to some fine Italian sausages, organic hot dogs, and green beans with marinated mushrooms.  We capped off the day with a couple pizzas from Homemade Pizza Company.  I'll put up the recipes for the beers in the next few days; for now, though, I thought it'd be nice to share some photos from this very satisfying brewday.